


Grand Fermata (who could love this disaster)

by zenelly



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 04:32:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7876633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenelly/pseuds/zenelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He waits there, waits for the voice that usually comes to him, waits for a hooded figure. Waits and waits until he finally wakes up, and it’s only when he does that he realizes there was a doubling of his breath, his heartbeat, the quiet, steady awareness of someone else.</p><p>He wonders if, maybe, he can find them again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grand Fermata (who could love this disaster)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Worlds Connected](http://kh-worldsconnected.tumblr.com) event on tumblr! The theme was "Time" and while I know I got a bit esoteric with following it, hopefully the idea comes through. I got the distinct honor of working with the lovely [cloudcastor](http://cloudcastor.tumblr.com) for the event, and BOY HOWDY did they pull through! Their art is absolutely incredible, and you should all heap love on them.
> 
> Thank you so much to the mods for hosting this event, because I haven’t written KH in a while, and it’s always good to reignite the old flames.

 

Darkness surrounds him, warm and comforting in a way he has not often known darkness to be. It is interrupted by nothing except his breathing, even the act of closing and opening his eyes changing nothing until finally. Light. From below, gently glowing. He exhales, holds his hands in front of his face, and nods to himself when he can see them clearly before lowering them to examine his surroundings.

Sora lets out a large sigh, looking down at the smooth floor of the Station of Awakening beneath him. The stained glass floor glows gently, extending in a perfect circle around him before ending abruptly, cavernous darkness surrounding him past that. It’s nowhere he hasn’t been before, heartbeat steady in his chest, unlike the last few times he’s ended up in this empty, dark abyss.

Sort of empty, Sora allows, examining the stained glass below his feet. And only sort of dark, too.

He waits there, waits for the voice that usually comes to him, waits for a hooded figure. Waits and waits until he finally wakes up, and it’s only when he does that he realizes there was a doubling of his breath, his heartbeat, the quiet, steady awareness of someone else.

He wonders if, maybe, he can find them again.

* * *

Hollow Bastion always gets so cold once the sun goes down, and Sora is beginning to think he’ll never get used to it. Leon has more than once offered him a coat or something while they work on restoration, but Sora is usually too stubborn to take them. Riku, on the other hand, has no such compunctions. His breath steams in the air, forming white clouds that are whisked away quickly by chill wind even as he tucks his chin below the collar of his borrowed coat. Following him through the terrain, Sora shivers as he categorizes his various aches and pains, the bruises and sore muscles caused by fighting the Heartless.

Sora breathes in. Out. He lets the night air fill him, lets his eyes cast over the sprawling, indistinct landscape lit by the pale moonlight and stars above. Beside him, Riku looks over all of Hollow Bastion as it sprawls out behind them, and Sora takes a few quick steps, ends up in front of him.

He asks without turning around, voice rough, “When do you think Xehanort will reappear?”

Riku hums. “After disrupting his plans like we did? I don’t think it’ll be particularly soon. He needs to regroup, first.”

Sighing, Sora stretches his arms up, crosses them behind his head. “That’s true. Is it bad that I wish we didn’t have to wait? I’m tired of waiting.”

“You’ve always been impatient, Sora. Relax. The longer he takes, the longer we have to gather our strength and information, and the more information we have, the better. We already have an advantage with the Ex-Organization members helping _us_ out instead of _him_.”

“I know, I know.” Sora takes a deep breath, trying to calm his agitation. He’s not looking for a fight. He wants everyone to be safe, and as long as Xehanort is out there, he can’t guarantee that they will be. Frustration chokes him. The entire world feels like it’s holding its breath. Like they’re on the verge of a cliff, with the wind pressing them both forward and back, hanging in a delicate balance before the fall.

Sora wants to just dive over the cliff and handle the drop as it comes.

* * *

Every evening, Sora sees Lea sitting against the parapets of the castle, watching the sun set with a sort of resignation to his face that implies an unforgotten ritual of long standing.

His hand lifts, as if to wave to the redhead, but Riku catches it, lowers it with a shake of his head.

“Some things are better left alone,” he says.

 _Some things are better with company,_ Sora thinks mulishly, but he allows himself to be drawn away, ignoring the pull in his chest that is leaning towards the empty space next to Lea where Sora thinks - _knows-_ he should be.

* * *

He sleeps.

He dreams of the deep, unending dark. Dreams of sinking into it and yellow, crazed eyes in a face that is his own staring back at him. He cannot wake up. He cannot move. He can do nothing except listen, and all he hears is-

Nothing. Just the faint doubling of his exhalations. The doubling of his heartbeat.

Slowly, aware of the chance that could be lost here, that he could be wrong, he turns around. If his heart is beating wildly in his chest, if he is scared to look up and see looming, terrible darkness again, well. He has had his share of waking nightmares.

The face that greets him (is _his_ ) is horrifying in its pain and malice, in the uncaring light in its yellow eyes. _“Let me_ go _!”_ it demands, and Sora-

Wakes up. Trembling and soaked in sweat. Afraid.

* * *

“Do you ever feel like you’ve ended up somewhere you’re not really supposed to be?” Sora asks, pacing around the room he shares with Riku in the middle of the night. Exhaustion tears at his eyelids, but he cannot bring himself to close his eyes. Can’t face the dark abyss again. Those eyes. “I mean, with the Keyblade and everything. I just feel, sometimes, like this isn’t what I’m supposed to do, or where I’m supposed to be. Like I should be somewhere else. Doing something.”

As he sits up on the bed, Riku makes a confused noise, a question in and of itself.

“I know this wasn’t supposed to be mine. This power, the Keyblade itself,” Sora says quietly, and he feels more than hears Riku stand up behind him. “I’m normal. There’s nothing special about me. So why-”

Riku grabs him by the elbow, turning him in a move that would be rough if it came from anyone but Riku, and despite the desaturated moonlight that streams through the window, Sora can see the color of his eyes, as vibrant as ever. Riku’s fingers flex and unflex as he gathers his words and not once does his gaze move away. Finally, Riku murmurs, “Don’t you ever say you’re not special.”

Warmth spreads up Sora’s sternum. “I’m not. I’m not you, Riku. I’m not Kairi. I’m just a simple boy from Destiny Islands.”

“And I’m different?”

“There _was_ that whole thing with the guy who gave you the ability to wield the Keyblade, you butt. Don’t pretend like you don’t remember.” Sora twitches his elbow, and Riku lets it go as Sora walks to the window, examining the familiar-unfamiliar mending city below them. “I wouldn’t change it. I just wonder... Why me?”

Stepping up next to him, Riku sighs. “You were chosen because you were _you_. You’re Sora, and that’s enough to make you worthy, so stop worrying. Besides, you’ll always have me.”

Sora nudges Riku with his shoulder. “Hey, when did you get all grown up?”

The older boy moves easily with the motion, his frame shaking with silent laughter. “Oh, I don’t know. Around the time when I was getting the idea beaten into me by a friend of mine that it didn’t matter how I felt about it, I was his friend because he said so.”

He smiles, leans against Riku, who goes still beside him. “Sounds like a good friend.”

“The kind of friend you never think you deserve,” Riku agrees quietly, and leans back.

* * *

Darkness crawls down his arms, his legs, and he can’t reach anything, no matter how hard he struggles. He needs to move. He needs to run, he is being chased by yellow eyes set in a face that is his, that’s _his_ face, _his_ smile twisted beyond all recognition, his fingertips reaching black and long for his throat.

Sora cannot wake up.

“ _I am through being a prisoner_ ,” the apparition that is not him growls, and Sora raises his arms slowly, tendrils of dark holding him tight. He cannot get free.

A deep light shines from within, burning bright and brighter still, full of a gentle, familiar voice and a long slumber, and it burns the hungry-eyed visage away, absorbing it within itself. “ _Not now,_ ” it says. First to the entity, then to Sora. _“I still cannot wake. Not yet. I’m sorry, child, but I need to rest_ . _I swear, I will not be long. Please, you just need to hold on for a little longer._ ”

When he wakes, his cheeks are wet. He does not remember why.

* * *

“Any luck?” someone asks, their voice echoing down the long hallway.

Sora slows his steps, holding his breath even as he edges closer to the open doorway. He’s not usually in this area. Poking around the castle hasn’t yielded anything new, but maybe here, there will be something for him to do. Anything to stop the waiting.

There is a quiet, subdued sigh. Then an answer, spoken in a low voice. “Nothing, Lea. Nothing at all. I have nothing to work with aside from what little I knew of them, and… There are twenty-four ways you could even begin to rearrange his name alone. I don’t know which is correct, or which world to start looking. We woke up _here_ , but no one else has, so they _must_ be waking up where they fell. Whichever worlds those are.”

“Hey, calm down, Ienzo. It’ll be okay. We’ll find him. All of them.”

“Yes, well. I’d be happier if I had more data.” Ienzo lets out a hard breath. “And there’s the issue of Roxas, too.”

Lea does not, Sora notices, say anything to that.

Ienzo’s tone is almost gentle as he says, “I don’t know if we’ll be able to reach him, Lea. He rejoined Sora of his own free will, which isn’t quite the same as being destroyed. Roxas might never…”

All Sora hears is his own, muffled breathing, trying to stay as quiet as he can, then Lea sighs. “Just keep looking, okay?”

“I hadn’t planned on stopping. But you might want to consider talking to Sora.” There’s a rustling sound. “We all woke up in the places we lost our hearts the first time, but not necessarily the order in which our Nobodies were killed. After all, you and I woke up close to the same time, and as Zexion and Axel… Well.”

There is more silence, a heavy weight of words left unsaid, and just when Sora is about to turn to leave, he hears a confession not meant for him, “I just miss him.”

Pain lances through his heart. Sora closes his eyes, wondering if the pang he feels is all sympathy for someone losing a friend, or if part of it belongs to someone else instead. Wonders what he could even begin to do about it, either way.

* * *

“Why do you keep coming down here, Sora?”

Down?

The direction makes Sora look down, at the shining glass below his feet, then up, up, towards the faintest bit of light high above them. High enough that it makes him dizzy, and he shakes his head, returning his gaze to Roxas, who watches him with a quiet, steady expression. Waits, still, in this boundless expanse that is nowhere and everywhere any time Sora closes his eyes.

“What are you doing here, Roxas?”

“I needed to talk to you for a little bit, and I thought this would be the easiest way.”

“Easiest?”

“Sora, you’re asleep. I can actually reach you right now.”

Sora wrinkles his nose. “That’s so… Ugh, we really need to get you back out so we can talk without this run-around bullshit.”

Roxas blinks then laughs, clearly startled first by the words and then by his own amusement. One gloved hand comes up to cover his mouth. “I would love to be anywhere not here, too, Sora, but we have to work with what we have right now.”

Something shakes. Sora stumbles, gets himself steady.

“Yeah, about that. Is there something you need me for?” Sora asks again, and Roxas tilts his head as though listening to a faraway sound. He frowns, steps towards Sora.

“I’m sorry. I meant to talk to you for longer, but it’s not safe anymore.” He makes a strange motion, like he’s tearing something away. Sora watches this all, confused, and everything is happening in deep water. Light distorting. Sound. Everything distorting. Why are his hands getting cold? “Sora, you’re asleep. You have to wake up, it’s not safe for you here right now.”

Sora blinks, slowly. “What? But we-”

“Sora. You need to wake up.” Roxas finally grabs him, gently, harder, harder still, the grip on his shoulder becoming painful, and Sora is moving through molasses for how fast he’s reacting, and there are strands of darkness creeping up his arms, his torso, climbing inside him and Roxas’ face screws up in a determined expression Sora knows from the mirror alone, and-

There is a flash of light.

* * *

Sora wakes up with a gasp, the edges of his dream fraying and whirling away. His heartbeat stutters in his skin, sharp, too aware, reverberating as his skin prickles. A heavy weight rests on his shoulder, and Sora looks up to meet Riku’s concerned gaze, even as he reaches up to rest his hand, shaking, on Riku’s. For a moment, Riku just searches Sora’s eyes before moving on to a general visual inspection.

He bears it silently, until finally, he drags in a deep, shaking breath. “Riku?”

“You weren’t waking up,” he says quietly. Sora slides his fingers in between Riku’s, his other hand reaching out to touch Riku’s cheek, to cup the back of his neck. Leaning his forehead against Riku’s, Sora closes his eyes and focuses on breathing slowly, matching his breaths to Riku’s. Or maybe Riku is trying to match his breathing to Sora’s. It’s hard to tell. “I tried to wake you up. I still know when you’re having nightmares. But you didn’t. I couldn’t, and.”

And he was scared.

He doesn’t have to say it.

Sora leans back, squeezes Riku’s hand, and does not know what to say.

* * *

“You sleep so much these days,” Riku says against the curve of Sora’s shoulder, half-asleep himself and fighting it the entire way down, and Sora doesn’t answer, unsure of how to tell Riku that he feels stagnant in this wait, that the only time he feels as though anything is actually happening anymore is when he’s asleep and trying to contact Roxas or the deeper, sleeping presence that he knows is there.

He can’t explain. He just presses his lips against his and Riku’s joined hands and hopes it’s enough.

* * *

Eventually, Riku falls back into an uneasy slumber. Sora carefully slides out from under Riku’s arm and off the bed, pads on silent feet out of the room, and winds his way from the center of the town to the highest wall of the castle. He walks around the perimeter, hearing, as ever, the distant chittering of Heartless. The sigh of wind. The tapping of boots, one-two, one-two, as Lea sits with his legs cast over the edge of the eastern wall, drumming his feet against the stone.  

That much, at least, is new.

Sora hops up onto the cold stone beside Lea. “Waiting for something?”

“You could say that,” Lea answers after a moment’s surprise. “I guess. I’m waiting on a lot of things right now. Drives me crazy.”

“Me too.” Sora sighs, kicks his feet in a pattern just offset to Lea’s, making a constant, quiet drumming sound. “Is it bad that I just want Xehanort to attack already? Whether we’re ready or not?”

“Just so it can all be over? No, that’s not bad. Reckless, maybe, but I’m right there with you, so I can’t really talk. I want to be actually doing something, not sitting on my hands and hoping that maybe I can find a way to get-” Lea cuts himself off, eyes narrowed, mouth bitten red.

Sora breathes in, through the ache, out again. “I’m sure Roxas misses you too.”

A short laugh. “I’m not even sure Roxas is alive anymore,” Lea says frankly, though his jaw is tight. “It’s not like Axel really is, after all. I’m just. Lea, now.”

“Yeah, but Lea is Axel, and Axel is Lea, and either way you look at it, you’re right here.” Sora pats him on the shoulder, wishing he could transfer his certainty through touch alone. “Roxas is more complicated than that. You just have to believe.”

Lea snorts. “Sure thing, kid. I’m not in a hurry to do anything else.”

They fall silent after that, watching as the horizon picks its way from deep blue to dusty, to pink and red and gold, and through it all, Lea sits and waits, face turned like a flower towards the sun.

* * *

“Roxas?” Sora calls, once more in the Station, stained glass glowing gently beneath his feet.

He does not get an answer. He waits until sunrise, blinks awake to find Riku holding his hand tight with shadows lurking in his eyes and the curves of his mouth.

* * *

“We’re up against at least four versions of Xehanort from different points in his life, and Saix and Xigbar, right?” Sora asks.

“Put down the beaker,” Ienzo says, calm.

Sora pouts, but does as he’s told, moving on to flip through a notebook laying out. He doesn’t really read it, the symbols and pictures flying before his eyes. “They were part of the Organization too, right? So why aren't you like them?”

There's a breath’s pause. “Two reasons. Either Xehanort didn't try hard enough with us, or something else got there first. “

“Like what?”

“Ourselves, most likely. Identity is not something as easily sacrificed as one may believe.” Ienzo finally looks over and sees Sora leafing through the notebook and lets out an irate sigh, grabbing it from him. “Don’t touch this either.”

“What does that even _mean_? And how can Lea use the Keyblade now? I thought it was a big deal. I mean, a guy came to Riku when we were kids and told him that he could use it to protect me, and now he can, but I can too and no one ever said that to me.”

Ienzo, for the first time since Sora has stepped foot in the laboratory, stills. He turns to Sora, considering. Sora wonders, briefly, if he should consider running, but by then, Ienzo has him boxed in place with a look alone, and then.

“Tell me, Sora,” Ienzo begins, eyes dark and serious, “do you know anything about a boy named Ventus?”

* * *

Now that Sora knows a name, he _tries_ to wake up in the Station of Awakening-, hopes beyond hoping for that column of light once more. He paces the edge of the platform, walking himself in large circles, calling out occasionally. But he gets nothing back and nothing back, and finally, he stops, breathing hard and staring harder. How is he supposed to get Ventus’ attention if he’s asleep?

“Is there a reason you’re shouting, or are you doing it just to wake me up?” someone asks.

Sora turns with a smile, and Roxas is standing in the middle of the platform, half-smiling, an eyebrow cocked. Quickly crossing the space between them, Sora grabs Roxas by the hands, which Roxas allows for a few seconds, indulgent, before he gently pulls himself away.

“This is the calm before the storm, Sora. Don’t be too eager to get into fights.”

“You can see that?”

Roxas nods. “Mm-hmm.”

“I’m not, I’m just ready for it all to be over. To get to go home, you know?” He shrugs, awkward, before continuing. “Lea’s looking for you,” he says, though he doesn’t quite know why, and Roxas’ face screws up into a complicated grimace, half fond smile, half horrendous pain.

“I heard.”

“Do you ever regret leaving him behind?”

Roxas does not have anything to say to that, and Sora presses more.

“Don’t you want to be out there?” Sora asks, curious. “I know we’ve talked about it before, but you aren’t… you shouldn’t have to stay here. Don’t you think you deserve to be free? To go home?”

Roxas looks up, face and jaw lit from the glowing stained glass below, and the expression in his eyes is difficult to name. For a long, long moment, he is silent. Sora gets impressions of touch, phantoms against his skin, the touch of fingers between fingers, the press of lips against neck, a laugh in his ear that is not Riku’s, and Roxas closes his eyes. His hands clench and flex, and Sora knows that movement, has done it a hundred times before reaching for his Keyblade. But nothing appears in Roxas’ hands, and he finally looks at Sora.

“No,” he answers.

And the glass beneath them shatters with the force of that quiet word, and when Sora jolts awake this time, he is unsurprised to find tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

Roxas was lying.

Sora knows this as well.

* * *

Lookout duty is boring.

Watching the empty streets in case of a Heartless attack sounds interesting at first, but vast majority of those stopped a few weeks ago, once Riku was able to unleash his power as a Keyblade Master on the crowds of Heartless, Sora at his side. Between all the Keyblade wielders, the Heartless have been pushed back to an almost negligible threat, which finally freed Leon and his crew up. Enough that they’re finally able to actually focus on more restoration efforts in the lower city.

But, again, that’s rendered lookout duty practically useless.

Sora lets out a heavy sigh and flops dramatically across the parapet. “Riku,” he whines, drawing out his name. “I’m bored.”

“Heaven forbid,” Riku says dryly, but he steps up beside Sora regardless, ruffling his hair. “It’s a good thing if guard duty is boring, you know.”

“Ugh.” Sora blows out a huff of air, making his bangs fly for a second, and he scans the area idly. He doesn’t see anything. Nothing at all, until there’s a flicker of motion, out in the rubble of the lower city. Sora tilts his head to the side. “Is that Lea?”

Riku steps forward onto the parapet, squinting in the direction that Sora points. “Looks like it. That hair is kind of unmistakable. Wonder where he’s- Hey, Sora, where do you think you’re going?”

Sora waves him off, vaulting over the side of the wall easily, heart throbbing for the chance of action. Riku shouts again, then subsides into a grumble. But already, Sora can’t hear him. On light feet, Sora darts around the fallen pieces of buildings, the piles of detritus, all the while keeping Lea’s beacon of hair well within view.

It works pretty alright as a system of sorts, until Lea stops with a crunch of gravel. He turns around and fixes Sora with a stare. “If you’re going to tail me,” he says in a drawl, “shouldn’t you at least be _trying_ to be sneakier about it?”

Sora blinks guilelessly. “Who said I didn’t want to be caught?”

He stares at Sora a moment longer, then snorts, waving a hand. A hint of a smile plays around his mouth, though it does not reach his eyes. “Alright, alright. Just make sure you stick close if you want to hang around.”

“Where are we going?” Sora asks, almost jogging to keep up with Lea’s longer steps. He’s not sure what kind of answer he’s expecting. But it’s not what he gets.

“My old neighborhood.”

When they get there, Sora slows to a stop, eyes wide as he takes in the sight before him.

There is nothing left.

Everything has been reduced into their barest, most basic parts, exposed metal sticking up almost grotesquely into the air, and Lea picks his careful way through it, feet stepping on paths that were there once. The houses have been ransacked, stone raked with claw-marks and pitted holes. Sora breathes in, imagines he can still smell the smoke, lingering high at the back of his lungs.

In the middle of it all, Lea crouches down, expression unreadable, and when he straightens again, there is a yellow and black plaid bandana in his hands.

Sora’s words are stolen from him. Recognition of the deepest and worst kind echoes through him, and he does not know why, but he _knows_ that bandana. Same as he knew the Keyblade when it appeared in his hands. Same as he knows Riku and Kairi. Like wind and salt and blood. Lea’s eyes lift from the square of fabric, pale and haunted, and he cuts anything Sora might have said off at the pass, halts him in place where Sora would go to his side.

“Look, whatever you’re about to say, don’t say that things happen for a reason.”

Rude. Sora’s mouth ticks to the side. He sighs, the immobility of deja vu fading as he walks over to Lea anyway. “Well, they do. Maybe not always a good reason. Maybe not one we can understand. But things happen because they _have to_. One way or another, things have to change.”

Lea snorts, his free hand raising to touch his cheeks. Sora imagines that if he still had them, his fingers would have landed almost exactly on his tattoos, and something small and sad curls in his chest. “Yeah, I guess. I just don’t like it.”

“I don’t think you’re always supposed to.”

Lifting his face to the wind, Lea half-laughs, a terrible sound, and he wraps the bandana tightly around his wrist, worrying at the age-soft material in his palm. “No. I don’t think so either.”

“ _Touch him_ ,” a voice whispers in the back of Sora’s mind, and he straightens. Roxas, quiet and desperate, says, “ _Please, don’t let him think he’s alone in this_.” But Lea shies away from Sora now, stalking away through the unsteady rocks.

Lea pokes around the wreckage for a few minutes more before he straightens, shaking his head. “I’m not going to find anything else worthwhile here. Let’s blow this joint.”

Sora catches up to him right before Lea whips around and lobs a ball of fire at the rubble. It explodes, Lea letting out a loud whoop of laughter. The sound is hysterical, and Sora watches him instead of the fire, even as Lea has a savage sort of satisfaction and pain scrawled along the lines of his face. He asks, “Are you okay?”

“Hell no. But I will be.” Lea squares his shoulders, raises an eyebrow at Sora. “You?”

“I’m trying to be okay,” Sora says, which is. Not what he intended at first, but as soon as it’s out of his mouth, he knows it’s true. Lea doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. He just nods.

“Good. Between you and me, I think we’ll do alright. You know, watching each other’s backs. Being patient.”

“I’m not good at that,” Sora says without clarifying which part he’s talking about, and Lea just laughs under his breath, tacitly understanding it all.

* * *

Sora turns around in the watery depths of the Deep Dive. He is alone, as he hasn’t been in a while. He looks at his hands, summons the Keyblade into them more to prove that he can rather than to do anything with it. It is a familiar weight, and he spins it idly, swings it in a facsimile of a fight.

“Are you ready?”

Sora raises his head, and Roxas is already waiting for him, face inches away, eyes focused and determined, within the radius of his Keyblade. Roxas waits for a second, then he continues again, asks, “Things are about to change. Are you ready?”

Straightening, Sora dismisses the Keyblade, holding out his hands, palms up. “I’m ready. Are you?”

Roxas snorts, waving a hand dismissively. “I don’t need to be ready. My part in this is done. I just have to be ready to help Ventus wake up.”

“That’s not all there is to you, and you know it.”

“Look at me. I’m just a part of you now. This is all I can do. I can sit here in the depths of your subconscious and wait.”

Sora sighs, irate, and he grabs Roxas by the face, hands gentle around the curves of cheeks that might as well be his too. “I can see you just fine, Roxas, and you’re wrong. You’re not me. But you’re not Ventus either. He’s asleep, still, and he will be until the time is right, and you don’t have to wait around for him. I can feel it. You’re your own person, remember?” Sora frowns. “And besides, you can’t just abandon Lea like that.”

“He has you now, doesn’t he?” Roxas says. “It doesn’t matter. You’re there, you’re whole enough to fight, and that’s all I was ever really meant to do or be.”

Sora bites his lip. “I don’t think that’s quite right.”

“The universe rarely cares about what people think is right or not.”

* * *

Sora dreams of sadness, of the taste of sea-salt against his lips, passed from one person to another, and he opens his eyes in these dreams to see Axel, always Axel.

He wakes from these dreams with sadness crushing his chest, aching, always aching, and even the sight of Riku’s silver hair splayed across the pillow isn’t quite enough to banish it.

* * *

“Why do you fight?” Sora asks him another time, another sleep, and Roxas blinks, surprised. Sora presses on, “You have people to protect, don’t you?”

“I do. Or I did, at least.” Roxas gnaws on the inside of his cheek, then seems to shake himself and focuses again with laser precision. “I already finished that duty to them, though. I’ve already protected them by helping wake you up. If you help them, if you fight, then that’s as good as me fighting too.”

“Bullshit.”

Roxas snorts.

“Look,” Sora says, implacable, “I just don’t think you should give up. You still have a part to play in all of this, and if you think Lea’s giving up on you, then you’re looking at the wrong person, there. You can’t give up on him too. ”

And Roxas smiles, reluctant but accepting. “For someone who hates waiting as much as you do, you sure do love to tell other people to never give up, huh? It’s time to wake up, Sora.”

That smile is what Sora takes with him as the dream fades away, as the awareness of the Somebody called Roxas curls up in his chest to rest until his time has come. He opens his eyes, breathes out. Even tucked as closely as he is beside him, Riku does not stir as Sora slides out of bed, pads across the cold stone floor in bare feet. Sora slips through the door, heading up to the wall-top and the parapets there. Lea nods at him, but they do not exchange words.

He leans forward and braces his hands on the rough stone.

 _Soon_ , Sora thinks, looking out over the open landscape and past the grim, blue mountains to the lightening sky above. Soon they will be done with waiting and the final push will come through. The dawn is breaking, the night fleeing before the sun, and he breathes in, smelling the dirt and air and the fullness of life within his lungs.

Soon.

 


End file.
